''I can't park, there are clouds of dust all over the cars, some of the sidewalks are closed,'' Keller said. ''The good part is they cut the heads off some of the parking meters.''

Told that project managers are altering road construction plans for the arrival of University of Georgia students this week, Keller replied, ''It'll probably help. God knows it's gonna be congested with all the students and street projects.''

Indeed. Several behind-schedule construction projects plus an anticipated record enrollment at the university could equal serious headaches for Athens drivers when UGA classes begin Thursday.

Athens-Clarke officials say they hope to lighten the downtown gridlock with a change in construction schedules, including more night work, designed to coincide with the flood of new residents. Still, expect some traffic hassles.

''The changes should help relieve some of the congestion problems that would occur otherwise,'' Athens-Clarke Mayor Doc Eldridge said. '' We'll get through it; it will be awkward. Of course, traffic in Athens is always heavy and a mess when students first get here for fall session. Twenty-five percent of the kids are here for the first time, and everybody's probably making four times the amount of road trips. The first two to four weeks, it just seems traffic goes crazy.''

Under a state University System Board of Regents mandate, UGA is aiming to increase enrollment by about 500 students a year until reaching 32,500 in 2003. UGA is likely to meet this year's goal, said University of Georgia spokesman Tom Jackson: 31,500 students, which would set a record for the second year in a row. Last year's fall quarter enrollment of 30,912 students was the most ever at UGA.

The biggest snarls could occur downtown on Broad Street, Athens' busiest thoroughfare, though work is being rescheduled to clear the road up during peak travel hours. Athens-Clarke officials don't expect that sales tax-funded project, which also encompasses portions of Pulaski and Clayton streets, to be finished before Sept. 8. The original target date for completion was Aug. 31.

Kevin Hamby, project manager for Heery International, the firm in charge of overseeing the sales-tax funded projects, would not comment on the road work, referring all questions concerning the projects to Sandi Turner, a spokeswoman for the Athens-Clarke County government.

Turner said construction schedules have been altered to cause the least possible amount of gridlock along Broad Street, where workers are replacing an antiquated storm-water system. In addition, some planned underground and above-ground work has been postponed until next summer.

Starting Thursday, there will be no lane closings during the day or on Friday and Saturday nights on the stretch of Broad between College Avenue and Thomas Street, Turner said. Instead, any work requiring lane closures will begin about 3 a.m., Sunday through Thursday. Lanes will be reopened in time for morning rush-hour traffic, and workers will continue on projects that don't require lane closures until about 4 or 5 p.m., Turner said.

''All efforts have been made to lessen the impact on parking and businesses,'' Turner said, adding that project managers estimate that only 10 to 15 parking spaces will be affected each day.

On the stretch of Clayton Street from Pulaski to Lumpkin streets, work on water, phone and cable lines; pedestrian lighting; sidewalks and road resurfacing will require the closure of possibly one lane each day, Turner said. The area of Pulaski Street from Clayton to Broad streets will be partially closed, but one lane will remain open, she said.

With the new work schedule, Athens-Clarke officials expect to avoid any major traffic hassles that could come with the arrival of thousands of football fans for UGA's home opener against Georgia Southern Sept. 2. That's the only home game between now and the Sept. 8 completion target.

Work on the water lines began in February, and major construction downtown started in May, at the end of UGA's spring semester.

''There was really no possibility of beginning any sooner without starting work in the midst of spring semester,'' Turner said.

Once work began, project managers ran into several unforeseen snags, including underground springs on Pulaski street, weather-related delays and a tangle of infrastructure lines that date back as far as 100 years.

''Any project you undertake in a central business district is complex and should be handled with care,'' Turner said. ''We always strive to adhere to construction estimates and minimize the impact, but any project of this nature is going to have unforeseen circumstances beyond our control.''

''To have a project completed within one week of the target date is pretty good,'' Turner added, ''and it's due to a lot of hard work by our contractors and construction people.''

She said officials don't expect any more problems to spring up.

''I think we're far enough along in the project to know the circumstances we're dealing with,'' she said.

''It's a tough thing to try to get that kind of work done while the university is not in session and get it completed in that short window of time,'' Eldridge said.''I do think our staff and the contractors have done everything to try to minimize the impact on the downtown businesses and traffic in general; it's just there's never a good time to start tearing those streets up. But there would have been significant problems regarding washouts and sinkholes had they not done this work.''

The influx of students and their cars, as well as football fans and their vehicles on game days, could also pose traffic problems in other areas around town:

The College Station Gateway, scheduled to be open by the first day of school, won't be.

Traffic on College Station near its intersection with East Campus Road will be reduced to one lane at times as workers try to get the project finished before the first home game Sept. 2.

''That's going to give us some bad morning and evening rush hours through the month of August,'' Jackson said.

The College Station exit off the Athens Perimeter is one of the major arteries in and out of the UGA campus for football fans -- and is the main artery to UGA's East Campus parking areas, where the UGA Athletic Association hopes to steer many football fans who don't have parking passes for the central campus under UGA's new football parking plan.

Another street configuration on Baxter Street won't be finished until next May, Jackson said. It's actually two separate projects -- one designed to widen and beautify the sidewalks leading down to the main campus from the high-rise residence halls on Baxter hill, and the other to change Baxter from a four-lane street to a three-lane street.

The sidewalk part will be completed on schedule by UGA crews, but Athens-Clarke officials discovered during the repaving project that curbing in the area will have to rebuilt -- which will delay completion until next May, Jackson said.

Two other on-campus projects will also affect the flow of people, Jackson noted.

On Smith Street beside Stegeman Coliseum, workers are installing a chilled water loop for the South Campus cooling system. That won't be finished in time, either. But UGA workers will cover up the deep trench with steel plates and put the street temporarily back in service next week. That will allow UGA to hold summer graduation exercises in the coliseum on Tuesday and fall convocation ceremonies Wednesday, Jackson said.

UGA officials are also trying to forestall a potential pedestrian problem at the UGA Bookstore parking lot as construction gets under way on the $37 million Student Learning Center there.

By the time school starts, building contractors should delineate a safe pedestrian path through the site to allow pedestrian access from East Baxter Street to the Tate Student Center Plaza, Jackson said.

The East Baxter corridor in the past has been a major pedestrian traffic artery away from Sanford Stadium after football games, but the construction could choke that artery off this year, he said.

While the road projects may make driving somewhat more of a hassle than usual, clogged roads around this time of year are no surprise to most Athenians, who find ways to cope.

Eric Vasenden said he doesn't let the traffic tangles get to him when he's riding his motorcycle through downtown.

''The only thing that worries me is the dust in the air that flies up in my face,'' Vasenden said. ''I'm used to the traffic.''

Police and courts reporter Stephen Gurr can be reached at sgurr@onlineathens.com or (706) 208-2219.

Higher education reporter Lee Shearer can be reached at lshearer@onlineathens.com or (706) 208-2236.